Battling for a European constitution

Out­side Europe, there seems to be lit­tle inter­est in the “con­sti­tu­tion­al negotiations(link to Deutsche Welle)”:http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1433_A_985962_1_A,00.html that began in Rome this week­end. But it’s a cru­cial step: this will be the first time that Europe has had a con­ti­nent-wide con­sti­tu­tion. Up to now, it had treaties (the “Treaty of Rome(BBC Glossary)”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/europe/euro-glossary/1054640.stm) and inter­gov­er­men­tal agree­ments reached at Sum­mit meet­ings. If agree­ment is reached, Europe will soon have a new legal per­son­al­i­ty: not described as the “Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion” but fed­er­al in all but name. * ‘Major­i­ty’ vot­ing on almost all issues includ­ing e.g. immi­gra­tion and refugees. A deci­sion would be adopt­ed if sup­port­ed by at least half the mem­ber states rep­re­sent­ing 60% of the pop­u­la­tion (dou­ble qual­i­fi­ca­tion). * A ‘legal per­son­al­i­ty’ for Europe: that is, the capac­i­ty to sign treaties on its own behalf, com­mit­ting all 25 mem­ber states * An elect­ed Pres­i­dent of Europe in office for up to 5 years (not a ‘rotat­ed’ nation­al ‘Pres­i­den­cy’ as now), an appoint­ed ‘For­eign Min­is­ter’ and a pub­lic pros­e­cu­tor * EU legal suprema­cy in its areas of ‘com­petance’ over the laws and par­lia­ments of mem­ber states These nego­ti­a­tions are, as usu­al in mod­ern Europe, a cold-blood­ed bat­tle pitched between (one one hand) grand con­ti­nen­tal strate­gies backed by opti­mistic eco­nom­ic pro­jec­tions and (on the oth­er hand) nar­row­er nation­al inter­ests defined by eco­nom­ic pow­er, sen­ti­men­tal his­tori­cism, exter­nal alliances and cutur­al arro­gance. It could be riv­et­ing to watch: but, unfor­tu­nate­ly, it most­ly takes place in back rooms behind a dread­ful old damask woven from almost impen­e­tra­ble euro-chat­ter (‘sub­sidiar­i­ty’, ‘cohe­sion’, ‘co-decision&#8217). The BBC pro­vides by far the “best guide(BBC News out­line of EU constitution)”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2950276.stm to the main deci­sions and issues. Mean­while, France joins Ger­many in skat­ing the mar­gins of an abom­inable “zero rate of eco­nom­ic growth”:http://www.lemonde.fr/article/0,5987,3224–336711-,00.html for 2003 and le dis­cours plunges head­long (as is the way in France) into some very “dark reflections”:http://www.iht.com/articles/112118.html on the achieve­ments of French eon­com­ic, social and for­eign pol­i­cy

Peter Gallagher

Peter Gallagher is student of piano and photography. He was formerly a senior trade official of the Australian government. For some years after leaving government, he consulted to international organizations, governments and business groups on trade and public policy.

He teaches graduate classes at the University of Adelaide on trade research methods and the role of firms in trade and growth and tweets trade (and other) stuff from @pwgallagher